


I'll Let You Save My Life

by Schwoozie



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Body Part Kinks, Established Relationship, F/M, Grinding, One Shot, Original Character Death(s), Porn With Plot, Prison, Shift Contest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-06
Updated: 2016-10-06
Packaged: 2018-08-19 21:50:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8225861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schwoozie/pseuds/Schwoozie
Summary: Beth is attracted to Daryl. Daryl is an attractive man. But lately there's a specific part of him that she just can't get out of her mind.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nikitajuice](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nikitajuice/gifts).



> Title from "Arms" by Christina Perri. No one has ever said I'm not on the nose enough.
> 
> This story takes place in a universe where Team Prison kills the Governor at the end of season 3. The Woodbury people still move in, and Beth and Daryl eventually get together.
> 
> Hope you enjoy ;)

Beth watches Daryl bury Mandy in the rain.

Mandy's the rare death that they see coming. 88 years old and diagnosed with breast cancer before the turn, when she arrived from Woodbury they didn't need Daddy or Dr. S to tell them she wasn't going to last long.

They posted a guard at her cell ever night. Near the end it was Beth more often than not. She was usually up with Judith anyway, and as it became harder and harder for Mandy to sleep she enjoyed talking with Beth, sometimes hearing her sing. Beth was occasionally aware of a dark Daryl-shaped shadow standing at the door of the cell when she did that. She told him to sleep once, and the frankness with which he replied that he couldn't sleep without her struck her dumb long enough for him to wander away, crossbow slung across his back as he went to check the fence one more time and wait for Beth to sleep.

He was the one who found Beth with a wet cloth in her hand, wiping it around the fresh knife wound in Mandy's temple so the blood didn't stain the sheets. He took the cloth from her, and when Beth protested he told her to fuck the sheets, pulling a blanket across Mandy's face and leading Beth to bed.

The prison holds plenty of bodies capable of digging a hole but as usual Daryl insisted on the task, and as he had a run in the morning he didn't get around to burying Mandy until late afternoon. They kept her body in what used to be the prison's walk-in freezer in the meantime. It doesn't work anymore, but it still provides a cool place where corpses won't rot as quickly. Milton informed them helpfully that this is what Northerners used to do with their dead in the winter when the earth was too hard to dig through. Daryl ignored him as he carried Mandy outside, Beth trailing behind him and numb to Milton's words too.

It starts raining when Daryl is about halfway down, but he doesn't stop and Beth doesn't go inside. It isn't a driving rain anyway; if Beth had fled to the prison when it started it would barely have spotted her clothes. But she's been standing in it for an hour and she's soaked through just like Daryl is, just like the sheet covering Mandy. It isn't a body-bag, just a simple bed-sheet, and the rain turns it translucent, clinging to the dead woman's face and body until Beth has to force herself to turn away out of respect.

She watches Daryl instead. She knows he's exhausted—he slept less than usual the night before, meaning barely at all, and came directly from a run at the Big Shot to this. The council had decided on reclaiming it, even after the debacle that killed Zach. It's a goldmine of supplies, after all, and with the knowledge of what they were up against, they easily gathered the manpower to clear it. Beth had been part of the team; insisted on it to her father and sister and even Rick when they protested. Daryl didn't speak up in her defense but he was at her shoulder for every argument, and it was likely his lack of protest as much as the knowledge that he would stick to her like glue that made them allow her to go.

In the end he didn't stick to her; he kept an eye on her of course, but didn’t hover like she knew Maggie would have. She even saved him, once, calling out when he was preoccupied with fighting one walker while another snuck up from behind him. Her alert gave him the time to fend them both off until she got there and stabbed the second walker in the temple. He didn't say anything beyond a nod but she flushed as if he had kissed her, and later that night that's exactly what she did to him, sneaking into his cell and pressing her lips to his before he could protest, not letting up until his arms were around her and she could sink the rest of the way into him.

It felt right, the two of them beginning then. Returning from the Big Spot together, laden with supplies and not a single corpse; going to him like he had once come to her to tell her her boyfriend had died. Except no one was dead; the day was good; Daryl tasted like the venison he had for dinner and felt like a puzzle piece sinking inside of her, finally finding its perfect indent and curve.

There was no protest when a few weeks later she moved her belongings from her cell to his; the only thing anyone said about it was Rick joking that he never expected to see a ladybug made from coloring paper hanging from Daryl's wall. It was the only decoration Beth brought—Daryl didn't have any of his own, and she wanted to share his space, not take it over—but she still felt something in her stomach lighten when Daryl smiled at Rick's remark rather than bristle. He took down the top bunk before they went to bed and Beth finally had the space to ride him without worrying about braining herself and they fell asleep tangled together and woke early enough to fuck again before rising for the day.

Beth doesn't expect or want her thoughts to turn to sex, not now, but turning away from Mandy means turning towards Daryl and. Well.

She's found him attractive since the moment she first saw him so long ago on the farm, and now that she's actually having him it's hard to look at any part of his body without imagining it pressed sticky and hot against her. He was sweating before the rain started and now he's drenched, thin sleeveless shirt sticking to his torso and jeans riding low on his hips and liquid sliding down and around the muscles of his arms, making them more defined than usual. In her attempts to keep her thoughts light Beth thinks about his arms; examines them carefully in the half-light of the drizzle as they bulge and flex, lifting pounds of earth like he's a child in a sandbox. He's been at this for at least an hour and his breathing isn't even heavy—it's a deep, slow in and out, and as Beth's mind drifts she imagines his arms inflating along with his chest.

He knows how she feels about his arms, but she's not sure he understands it, not completely. He doesn't understand anything about her attraction to his body—has spent so long thinking of it as nothing but a tool that he never considered being enjoyed for aesthetic pleasure. It's far from just aesthetic for Beth, of course—he's gentle with her, so gentle, gentle even when he's fucking her hard with her cheek pressed to the mattress and his breath searing her neck—but there are times when he forgets himself. Flips her over like a piece of paper when he's so far gone he wants his cock in anything, _anything_ —pins her wrists above her head in one strong hand while he licks at her nipples and she alternates between watching his mouth to watching his arm, actively struggling against it just so she can see and feel him hold her tighter. She learned quickly not to mention things like that to him—he barely touched her for a week afterwards, and when he did it was like he was handling porcelain—but she keeps that attraction locked in her heart, burning for it as much as she has ever burned for him. She doesn't want _rough_ sex, per se, and she _knows_ that he doesn't—but still. Still, it's nice to be reminded sometimes that he doesn't just make a pretty picture.

She blinks and realizes that while she was lost in thought, he's finished the grave; is levering himself out of it, bracing his hands against the earth and leaping, easily catching himself on one foot and rising from his crouch to stand on solid ground. He looks at her through his hair and she takes a moment to thank God it's raining because she feels so flushed and _lord_ , there's her dead friend waiting to be buried—but she shakes it off, goes to him and takes one end of the tarp under Mandy's body while he takes the other, lowering her together into the hole. They'll have a service for her tomorrow, when the rain's stopped and it isn't so close to dark; for now they just have to cover her, and Beth takes an extra shovel to help Daryl move the dirt back into the hole, trying not to look at Mandy's sheet-covered face as the earth gradually builds on top of her.

Once they have about half the hole filled—enough that Mandy won't be uncovered by the dampened soil—Daryl sticks his shovel in the left over dirt pile. Beth follows suit, prepared to head back to the prison for a change of clothes and a warm meal—but Daryl is still standing there, his head bowed and rain dripping from the ends of his long hair. Beth breathes out slowly and goes to him, slips her hand into his. He squeezes her tightly, almost tight enough to hurt.

He barely even knew Mandy. She was always in her cell, and he was always so busy; the only times he'd ever really seen her were when he was urging Beth to leave her for him. But Beth's come to realize how death weighs on his heart; every death, even the ones that would have happened anyway, because he's supposed to protect his family and every new grave he digs is evidence that he's failed.

Beth holds onto his hand and wraps her other arm around his bicep, hugging him tightly to her body in a cradle between her breasts. She whispers a brief prayer, just loud enough that he is able to hear, and when she looks up at him she sees he's closed his eyes, is pointing his face towards the sky.

The heat that had been building between Beth's legs as she watched him digging is gone now. The ache has moved to her chest, and she kisses Daryl's shoulder as he draws in a shuddering breath.

“Let's go inside,” she whispers.

He doesn't nod, but he follows her when she turns to go, hand still clasped tight within hers.

* * *

Save the candle burning itself to a puddle of wax on the desk, their cell is dark; the privacy curtains are thick enough that the only light filtering in from outside comes from above and below, and it's dark outside too. But Beth's eyes adjusted to the lack of light long ago.

It's rare she gets to watch him like this. Even when she stays quiet as a mouse, he has the uncanny ability to know when she's awake and to wake himself in turn. She teased him about it once; said it wasn't fair he got to watch her sleep when she couldn't watch him. He just shrugged, face beet-red as he muttered that he doesn't do that shit anyway.

She knows that's a lie. She's never caught him, but she knows it's a lie. He stares at her enough when they're awake, she knows he watches her when she's sleeping too.

It doesn't bother her, or creep her out. Well, there are some mornings when she wakes with a puddle of drool on her pillow and she hopes he wasn't watching _that_. But she can understand the desire to look at someone when they're totally vulnerable; to feel what a gift it is, to be allowed to see that.

She feels that now, watching him sleep. They aren't wrapped up together like usual; Beth had gotten up to go to the bathroom and decided to wait a bit before getting fully comfortable again. She's on her side, on her elbow, face balanced on her palm as she takes him in in the shifting shadows. The hard planes of his face, slackened in sleep but ever present; the deep well of his collarbones, how the bones themselves stretch towards his shoulders like wings; below his shoulders, his arms... his arms...

The inhabitants of the prison had shared a moment of silence for Mandy before they set upon the dinner pots like grubs. It takes a full time kitchen team to keep the prison fed, and Beth wonders sometimes how this can possibly last. They grow crops in the yard and Daryl and a few other semi-competent hunters bring in as much meat as they can, but if the populations grows any farther... Beth didn't get a chance to study epidemiology like Maggie did in college, but even she can see that they're stretching beyond their limits. She sees it in Daryl's knitted brow when some kid walks to the tables with a heaping plate; she sees it in the council's eyes every day as the fences become more and more crowded. It took them a long time to clear the walkers that the Governor's failed attack brought; even longer to reinforce the fences. And for a time it was quiet. But in this world, you can't expect such a large group living together not to draw attention. Beth loves the feeling of living in a community again, of having children to take care of and teach, but sometimes she finds herself wishing it could be as it used to be—the people she fled the farm with, and a few others. The ones who were here before Woodbury collapsed and the inhabitants took their offered shelter with open arms.

And there it is again—arms, and she closes her eyes and purses her lips to keep from laughing. Daryl had been too tired to fool around before collapsing, and she wasn't much in the mood either, not after a day worrying about Daryl and an afternoon watching him dig a grave for her friend. But thinking about that grave reminds her of how his biceps looked all bunched up as he lifted the laden shovel, hard and sturdy and just the thing–

Her eyes fly open but her lips stay pursed, not sure what noise would come out should she relax them. She looks at Daryl, sleeping soundly on his back, face turned a little towards her, mouth relaxed. He's wearing a white tank top, and boxers. He has one arm curved, hand resting on his rising and falling stomach, but the other...

The other is stretched out straight, a little away from his body. Even without muscle tension she can see evidence of the strong cords beneath his skin. She shifts a little, not even enough to make the bed move, and it isn't until she feels a wave of arousal roll through her that she realizes she's rubbing her thighs together. Biting her lip, she reaches down and past the waistband of her panties and has to stifle a gasp at how wet she is. Wet just with looking.

She wasn't in the mood before, but she's seething with it now.

She could sneak back to the bathroom and find a secluded shower stall; she could roll onto her back right here and take care of herself as quietly as possible. Daryl might wake up, but he could choose whether or not to join in. They've done that before, masturbated in front of each other, and both of them have loved it—he'd never think less of her for taking care of herself with him just inches away.

But. He _is_ inches away. His arm is stretched towards her like a fucking invitation.

 _He must be sore from digging for so long_ , Beth thinks, hand lingering inside her panties, the other coming up to absently rub a nipple through her thin camisole.

Thinking of him digging brings her back to Mandy, and she stops touching herself for a moment, feeling a wash of guilt for even considering this. This woman, her friend, is spending the night in a half-covered grave, after suffering for so long–

After dying. After dying for so long.

Mandy was dying before the world even ended. But Beth, her hands moving again but now to strip down to her skin, feels deeply, vibrantly alive.

Daryl begins to stir when she pulls her camisole over her head, looking at her with bleary blinking eyes. It makes her happy to see him waking up like this, all slow, unhurried confusion. So often he's up like a shot, fully awake in moments. She's seen it dozens of times—in his bed, and before, when she would wake him for a turn with Judith or on the road before the prison, waking to every snap in the woods no matter how strong their guard. It's only been recently, and then only rarely, that he rises without shock, feeling safe. It's only ever been with her.

She feels her heart swell as she meets his hazy eyes in the dark and crawls up to straddle his upper arm.

“Beth?” he says. She feels his muscles bunching like he's about to move his arm and she reaches quickly behind herself to pin his wrist to the bed. It isn't much of a grip; he could break it without thinking. But it stops him long enough for her to find the thickest part of his bicep and sink down.

They both gasp; him, likely, with surprise, and her with the contact, the pressure against her burning pussy and how _thick_ he is—thicker than his cock, obviously, too thick for her pussy lips to do more than gape against, can't hug the way they can when she rides him, gets him wet and ready—but for all the times she's straddled his waist or his thigh or his hips she's never felt quite so much like she's sitting on a _log_.

When it's clear he isn't going to move away any time soon, she pulls her hand from his wrist and braces it instead on his chest; looks at him with half-lidded eyes as she wriggles, working her lips further open and pressing her clit harder against him.

“The fuck are you doing?” Daryl whispers. A muscle in his arm twitches and it's like a buck of his hips; Beth gasps, grinding back down in response and moaning low and hungry when his bicep tightens against a pressure that must be at least slightly painful.

“I'm getting off,” Beth whispers back, cognizant always of their family around them, how the halls echo—but knowing also that no one will say anything in the morning.

Well. Glenn might. But only when Maggie and Daddy aren't around.

“And you thought my arm was a good place to do that?” Daryl asks, but he doesn't sound angry or even surprised anymore. He sounds turned on.

That's rarely a bad thing where Beth's concerned.

“Can't blame me, can you?”

Daryl scoffs, but she sees his free hand moving down to cup himself through his boxers, hears him moan softly in satisfaction as his eyelids flutter. Then his eyes are open, and they're looking at Beth, and it almost pauses her rhythm how intense they are.

“Nah,” he says softly—playing along, she knows, because he still doesn't know what he does to her just _standing_ there with his sleeves cut off and his hip cocked—but she doesn't just get to look anymore, she gets to touch, and her hips are moving almost of their own volition, grinding her clit against the hardness of his arm. She grins at him, wild, encouraging, then throws her head back and closes her eyes, focuses on how much easier the slide is, from her liquids and his sweat, how each time he flexes it forces a groan from her lips. He's bent his arm at the elbow so he can run his hand across her undulating back, and she's hardly surprised when she feels his other hand on her breast, moving over her with practiced ease. She opens her eyes for this—looks down her body in the dark, sees his large hand swallowing her up, covering her breast completely as he kneads at it. He's breathing heavily too, hips jerking up against nothing but not touching himself anymore. Touching her, touching _her_ , pinching her nipple sharply and moving to the other breast before she finishes gasping.

“Daryl,” she whispers, breathless as she pauses in place, grinds her cunt against his arm, wishing almost that he could penetrate her from this angle too–

His hand leaves her breast and circles to the back of her head, bunching in her hair as he drags her down and she goes willingly, sighing as he licks at her pink nipples before moving her again and kissing her, mouth open and sloppy like he's the one getting off, and why shouldn't he—Beth groans, fisting one hand in his hair and pushing the other down his body and beneath his boxer shorts, eliciting a hiss as she takes him hot and heavy in her hand.

“That's what I felt like,” she whispers against his mouth, immobile now as he concentrates on the feeling of her hand. “Watching you dig today. Fuck, Daryl, you don't know–, oh, _fuck_ ,” she gasps as her clit hits his flesh just right and she squeezes him hard in return, squeezes him until he's lifting his hips and helping her push his underwear down below his balls so she can stroke him like she should, base to tip, flicking her thumb across his slit as he bucks into her hand. “You're so _strong_ ,” she gasps. “It's like–, fuck, god, I can't–“

“Shh,” he murmurs, licking along her lips and into her mouth, catching her tongue between his teeth and sucking on it. “Don't gotta say nothing. Just–, jesus, you're so wet, _Beth_ –“

“It's for you,” she whispers, writhing against him now, pussy burning and sparking like pop rocks when he gets his hand in the ends of her hair and pulls, drawing pinpricks of pain from her scalp. “You get me so wet, Daryl, just looking at you...”

“You were wet today?” he asks, a growl in the back of his throat that makes her redouble her efforts on his arm and his cock. “Watching me?”

“Yes,” she gasps, the pressure in her stomach winding tighter and tighter. “I didn't want to think–, I didn't want her there.” Beth feels the sting of tears in her eyes, and Daryl pauses beneath her before she squeezes his cock desperately, slides her cunt all the way up to his shoulder and all the way back down. “I just wanted us... just want us...”

“It's just us,” Daryl whispers, hand moving from her head to wedge between his arm and her pussy, rubbing at her clit and dragging a ragged groan from her throat. “Just us... come for me, baby, come on, you're almost there–“

Beth humps against him wildly now, his cock half-forgotten as she chases the sparks swirling in her abdomen, bent nearly in half as she presses her forehead to his throat. His fingers work her clumsily, unsure about their position and her rhythm but that makes it better somehow, and with a final thrust of her hips she cries out, voice partially muffled by his chest as she shakes against him and shakes again when his fingers work farther and push at her entrance.

She slumps against him, muscle tension gone. She's vaguely aware of his hand pulling from her pussy and wrapping around hers on his dick, working up and down until he hisses and she feels him spill over her fist.

Both of them spent, she falls sideways, drawing an _oof_ from him as she lands across his chest and stomach. She giggles weakly as he rearranges her into a more comfortable position, still sprawled on top of him but not jabbing any vital organs. He tucks her face under his chin, and she can feel the stickiness of their cum on the back of her neck but doesn't much mind. They both went to bed dirty. They'll shower in the morning.

“Beth,” Daryl whispers, and she realizes that the trembling in her body comes from sobs and not aftershocks. “Beth, y'alright?”

“No,” she says, burrowing into him as he draws the sheets across them both. In the position they're in, her lips brush his skin with every word, and she feels the goosebumps rising against her mouth with each syllable. She breathes in and he breathes out, torsos expanding and contracting against each other. His lips brush her forehead. She sighs. “But I'm here. With you. That's ok.”

His arms draw around her, and she shivers a little when she feels her own drying cum scraping across her back. But it doesn't matter. His arms are tight around her. Tomorrow they'll finish covering Mandy's body, will hold her as Daddy conducts a short service. They're all short these days, but something inside her feels like tonight was in honor of Mandy too. However perverse that sounds.

She doesn't care how perverse it is. She's sleepy and boneless and slipping quickly out of conscious, but she's alive. He's alive. They're alive together.

And she's in his arms, and he's still holding her tight.

 


End file.
